New numbering rules for phones in Australia [telecom]

To sum up, VoIP services can have numbers from any local area in the whole country (which they did anyway in a lot of cases, but now it is official policy).

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New numbering rules for phones Lucy Battersby February 2, 2011

FIXED-LINE telephone numbers can now be taken outside geographic areas following a decision by the regulator to accommodate the increasing use of internet-based phones.

The decision recognises that area codes are becoming irrelevant to millions of people taking up internet-based phone services with flat national pricing, but also affects emergency services, which rely on geographic information in phone numbers to locate callers.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) changed the Numbering Plan earlier this week as part of a wider review prompted by changing technology and consumer habits.

Currently, about 2 per cent of calls are made on voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phones, but all fixed-line phones in Australia will eventually operate over the internet as the national broadband network replaces the underground copper line network.

The new rules allow a number to be taken across a state, or to another state, as long as the customer is aware it could affect the cost of calls to and from their phone and their new telephone company agrees.

''In practice, the number is still in the place that it belongs,'' general manager of regulatory and corporate affairs at Internode, John Lindsay, told The Age.

''It's just now it is legitimate to use that number somewhere other than the geographic region it belongs to.''

Calls made through VOIP services are generally a flat price regardless of the distance, but calls from the copper network would be charged as if the number were in the original location. ''I don't think that people using numbers actually care about where the numbers are any more, what they care about is whether they pay a fixed price to call it,'' Mr Lindsay said.

However, Inspector Peter Ferguson, from Victoria Police Communications Centre, said emergency services sometimes relied on the geographic information in telephone numbers.

''We want as accurate information as possible ? about the location [of the caller] because that assists us to send the right people to the right location in an emergency,'' he said.

''Every clue that you have available to you, you would use to try to locate them.''

ACMA is expected to make further changes to numbering rules this year. It recognises that consumers want flexibility in numbering and many were already taking VOIP numbers across local boundaries, manager of telecommunications, licensing, numbering and submarine cables section at ACMA Robert Johnston said.

''VOIP, convergence and the NBN are changing technology and the sorts of services that can be offered,'' he said.

''The use of internet protocol for service addressing is increasing and it is possible that this addressing scheme could replace traditional numbering in the future.''

Reply to
David Clayton
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Sigh. Shades of Sprints old "pin drop" campaign. There's absolutely nothing that prevents a broadband network from using copper cables.

Reply to
Robert Neville

As part of the rollout of the NBN (fibre to the premises) the incumbent telco is going to gradually decommission all the "copper".

They continually complain about the upkeep costs of such old plant anyway, so it will save people money as the fibre infrastructure maintenance should be a lot less over its intended life.

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Reply to
David Clayton
[snip]

For some definition of "people" that most likely does _not_ include the end customers...

Reply to
danny burstein

Obviously fibre has advantages in capacity over copper, but does that mean existing copper plant should be abandoned?

Why is fibre cable cheaper to _maintain_ than existing copper cable? I would guess that the big maintenance expense of outdoor physical plant would physical protection against weather and injury and access for maintenance. Wouldn't physical protection costs, such as durable outer shells, be the same for copper as fibre? If say a car knocks down a pole carrying lines, isn't the biggest cost labor of the crew to replace the pole and remount the lines?

Reply to
Lisa or Jeff

A lot of the copper infrastructure in Australia has suffered from a chronic lack of maintenance since the dominant telco (Telstra) was privatised a couple of decades ago, so it is becoming increasingly costly to maintain and keep up to a standard capable of satisfying the increasing needs of data use. Telstra keep quoting the increasing maintenance costs as a justification for increasing the costs of their fixed line services when they go to the regulator for price increases.

Many people (including me) have also suffered from old copper infrastructure suffering from moisture ingress and other issues.

Telstra themselves were already rolling out fibre to "Greenfields" sites instead of copper on a much smaller scale, the NBN covers the whole country (which is about the same overall area as the mainland USA), most of it being serviced by fibre and the sparsely populated remainder by wireless.

Part of the deal for the NBN is to run the fibre in the existing Telstra conduits that the copper uses, and I would imagine in some cases there may not be enough room for both. In any case, the lower ongoing cost of the newer fibre infrastructure makes the old copper financially non-viable in the long-term.

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Reply to
David Clayton

Two words: water and power.

Since copper phone lines are energized metal, any water that makes it into the cable or equipment causes corrosion, which requires maintenance. Since water almost always finds a way in, copper always will need maintenance. Fiber, on the other hand, does not corrode. Water may make it past the outer jacket, but it will be a very, very long time until it damages the fiber's ability to carry information.

The other issue is power. Copper systems often have powered devices between the central office and the subscriber. Be they line concentrators, amplifiers, or other devices, they all require power. These active devices add potential failure points that require regular maintenance keep service levels up. If the devices have backup batteries, they will require regular inspection and replacement as well. Fiber, at least the PON variety, has no powered devices in the field. Thus, all of the maintenance related to power in the field is eliminated. (Note: "field" does not include the CO and subscriber premise equipment.)

You are correct that both fiber and copper are subject to "back-hoe fade." That is typically handled by the network engineers adding redundant routes. For non-redundant routes, yes, a truck roll will be required to patch or replace the damaged section. Fiber may be a bit more costly to repair due to the special equipment and processes required, but compared to the overall maintenance costs it fiber usually comes out ahead.

The bottom line is that PON is requires much less maintenance than copper to achieve the same level of reliability. Couple that with it's ability to offer much more advanced services, and you can understand some telco's push to deploy it. Of course, deployment costs are huge compared to the sunk costs of 100 years of stringing copper, which is why we don't see everyone rushing to switch.

-Gary

Reply to
Gary

Yes. The reason is simple economics.

1) The services that one can deliver via FTTH _cannot_ all be delivered over the existing copper infrastructure. 2) _everything_ that can be delivered over the existing copper *can* be delivered via FTTH.

Corollary: you _have_ to have FTTH to deliver the "can't be done on copper" services.

Since the fibre *IS* going to be there for those services, and the installation and recurring operating costs of that infrastructure are _already_ being paid, anything else that also rides on the fibre does it effectively 'for free'. Since _all_ the 'can be done on copper' services _can_ ride the fibre, it makes sense to put them there, since there is effectively -zero- incremental cost for having them there. Thus, there is -no- reason to continue to maintain the copper physical plant. It is now superfluous to operations. In fact, you can _make_ money by decommissioning that infrastructure. Pull the copper and sell it for salvage.

Because it _is_.

Fibre simply doesn't require as much maintenance. Especially when measured on a 'per voice circuit equivalent capacity' basis.

No.

The protection requirements -are- different. Especially with regard to moisture.

That aside, how many fibre strands can you put in a, say, 1/2" ID conduit? How big a pipe does it take to hold the number of copper pairs required to provide the same communications capacity? Do you think that that monster pipe is available for the same cost as the 1/2" conduit?

Yes, a 1/2" pipe costs the same whether it's protecting fibre or copper, but the "cost per circuit" is orders of magnitude lower if there is fibre inside that pipe.

H*LL no!! When the pole got knocked down, the lines -broke-. The labor cost for splicing umpty-hundred pairs -- probably _twice_ (since you probably have to insert a _replacement_ section of cable as opposed to just re-connecting the broken ends to each other) -- probably swamps the cost of re-setting the pole.

Needless to say, you can make a few fibre splices in _far_ less time than it takes to splice the equivalent umpty-hundred copper pairs.

Fiber also is much more forgiving about environmental conditions. ESPECIALLY moisture -- You _don't_ have to keep the cable dry,

Fiber doesn't corrode.

Fiber doesn't need 'sealing current'. It's only a 'small' current for any single pair, but multiply that by -many- thousands of pairs in a medium- large C.O. any you've got a non-trivial _monthly_ recurring cost.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

Well, other than service that continues working when the power goes out for more than a few hours. But apparently nobody cares about that any more.

R's, John

***** Moderator's Note *****

Copper's leggacy will take a few years to wear off. There are a number of services which will suffer with fiber-only local plant: burglar alarms, which used to depend on having DC continuity, are now data channels - until the power dies. Given that many "CEV" sites have less than twelve hours of battery backup, any long-term power outage in an area with fiber-only plant will leave the entire area without alarm service.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
John Levine

,

at&t would beg to differ with you vis a vis their uVerse service. It's fiber out to the cabinets, but copper to the homes.

Reply to
T

In my little rural town of Pahrump, NV (35,000 population, 65 miles west of Las Vegas) we had a real-life example of what happens to communications during an extended power outage.

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Power failed in mid-morning on a January day, and was not restored until after nightfall. The cause was a break in the main transmission line bringing power from Las Vegas.

Cell phones stopped working after a couple of hours as the batteries at the cell towers ran down. Without power, the police, fire and electric company radio repeaters stopped working, greatly hampering communications. But copper-wired telephones kept working.

Ham radio came to the rescue, communications-wise. Our local Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) chapter was activated. ARES members were assigned to police, fire and electric company officials to relay orders and information over our amateur repeater, which has solar power and a big battery backup. And of course, our personal ham radios, handheld as well as in vehicles, are battery powered (and we have spare charged-up batteries).

Dick

Reply to
Richard

In my little rural town of Pahrump, NV (35,000 population, 65 miles west of Las Vegas) we had a real-life example of what happens to communications during an extended power outage.

formatting link
Power failed in mid-morning on a January day, and was not restored until after nightfall. The cause was a break in the main transmission line bringing power from Las Vegas.

Cell phones stopped working after a couple of hours as the batteries at the cell towers ran down. Without power, the police, fire and electric company radio repeaters stopped working, greatly hampering communications. But copper-wired telephones kept working.

Ham radio came to the rescue, communications-wise. Our local Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) chapter was activated. ARES members were assigned to police, fire and electric company officials to relay orders and information over our amateur repeater, which has solar power and a big battery backup. And of course, our personal ham radios, handheld as well as in vehicles, are battery powered (and we have spare charged-up batteries).

Dick

Reply to
Richard

In my little rural town of Pahrump, NV (35,000 population, 65 miles west of Las Vegas) we had a real-life example of what happens to communications during an extended power outage.

formatting link
Power failed in mid-morning on a January day, and was not restored until after nightfall. The cause was a break in the main transmission line bringing power from Las Vegas.

Cell phones stopped working after a couple of hours as the batteries at the cell towers ran down. Without power, the police, fire and electric company radio repeaters stopped working, greatly hampering communications. But copper-wired telephones kept working.

Ham radio came to the rescue, communications-wise. Our local Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) chapter was activated. ARES members were assigned to police, fire and electric company officials to relay orders and information over our amateur repeater, which has solar power and a big battery backup. And of course, our personal ham radios, handheld as well as in vehicles, are battery powered (and we have spare charged-up batteries).

Dick

Reply to
Richard

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